Qualified Social Worker – Fostering Service

Here in Swindon we have a clear vision and plans to reduce the need for Children to come into our care with our new adolescent offer and edge of care work and we are continually working as a partnership to ensure or children are safe.

We’re making a real difference to the lives of the children and families we work with in Swindon.

Join us and be part of that difference.

About us

Our social workers are supported, challenged and rewarded.

Is it time you joined them?

We’re looking for passionate people who are committed to doing the very best for our children and vulnerable families. 

Our excellent teams are small, work with manageable caseloads and have regular supervision. We’re proud to be one of only a handful of councils in the UK using the Family Safeguarding model – one of the great success stories of social work in the UK.

To find out more about the Family Safeguarding Model, please click here

It’s delivering real results and improving the professional day-to-day working experience of our social workers, who get to work more closely with all partners, ensuring better support for some of our most vulnerable families.

Underpinning all our practice is motivational interviewing (MI) - a strengths-based conversational approach to counselling that encourages families to improve their children’s welfare by enhancing their motivation to change.

We’ve also got a growing Social Work Leadership Academy to develop practitioners and leaders across our service and clear career pathways for progression.

See our Vision and Values page for more details and our new Swindon Plan.

If that’s not enough, here are five more reasons to join us:

• We offer flexible working and home working
• We offer great benefits, including a local government pension scheme
• You can park for free at our Swindon site
• Our salaries are competitive

Please see our Rewards and Benefits offer for more details.

We’re delivering an ambitious transformation plan across our children’s service. We’re changing for the better. Come and be a part of it.

About the role

We are fully committed to ensuring safe recruitment and assessment of our foster carers in Swindon. We need a qualified social worker to join us with a shared commitment to the importance of fostering and connected care for the children we work with.

We are looking for someone who is motivated, has good assessment skills and has an understanding of the needs of children looked after both by connected and unconnected carers. Ideally, you will have a knowledge of both fostering and Kinship care planning legislation. You will be joining an established and fully permanent team with lots of experience to help you grow in our role.

You will be assessing individuals as prospective carers (including related and unrelated carers) to consider their suitability to care for children under different legal arrangements including mainstream fostering and SGO.  You will help support individuals in the recruitment and preparation for their roles, whether that is caring for children in a kinship arrangement or caring for an unrelated child.

You will be joining the team at an exciting time with new foster carers being recruited, us developing our therapeutic offer of training for foster carers and social workers and the now live ‘Mocking Bird’ model.

The needs of our children we care for and carers don’t stop at 5pm so you’ll need to be able to commit to some flexibility in working to include visits to suit the needs of our prospective carers and some training and recruitment activity during evenings and occasional weekends.

About you

We require all social workers to have a degree or diploma in Social Work, full Social Work England registration and a proven ability to work in partnership with children, young people, parents, carers and partners.

A strong strengths-based approach and child-centred value base that informs the work with children, young people and families.

Excellent interpersonal skills to engage and motivate children, young people and their families in a range of circumstances.

Effective assessment, analysis and planning skills and excellent direct work skill base and knowledge that can be shared with colleagues across the team.

Your aspirations should be limitless and you will be as determined and passionate about Children’s Services as we are. As a local authority, we continuously drive forward improvements in our services. We want our Social Workers to be part of our transformation, contribute to improving the safeguarding of our children, and we will make sure you have the full support network and training to do it.

Our teams are ambitious and proactive and we are looking for people who will share that ambition and be a part of our journey.

You must be fluent in the English language (as a requirement of Part 7 of the Immigration Act “for the effective performance of a customer-facing role”).

Our commitment to your development

We are dedicated to ensuring that you can progress your continued professional development and access training and learning opportunities linked to the BASW competencies for career progression.

We have an established Social Work & Leadership Academy. The Academy aims to celebrate the best in professional practice in Social Work and Social Care Leadership. The Academy represents an opportunity for us to demonstrate how we support, develop and value the professional disciplines in Social Work and Social Care through a targeted framework of career development and learning opportunities. 

Your next steps

Read the role profile and select the Apply button where you will be redirected to the Swindon Borough Council website to complete our online application process. Clicking the ‘Apply’ button on this job website is not an application, you must register on the Swindon Borough Council website in order to be considered for the role.

For further information about the role, please contact Emma Hunt, Assistant Team Manager at ehunt2@swindon.gov.uk

As an inclusive employer, we welcome applications from a diverse range of communities, and in particular disabled people and people from ethnic minorities. Read our statement of commitment to equality & inclusion.

If you are experiencing technical issues submitting your application please email resourcing@swindon.gov.uk